This hypnotizing video shows incredible patterns of starlings’ murmurations

Have you ever seen starlings’ murmuration? I still remember my reaction when I saw it for the first time. Even though it was on TV, it had me drop everything and just watch in awe. Photographer Xavi Bou captures this amazing phenomenon in his ongoing project Ornitographies. And in his latest video, he has made starlings’ murmuration even more hypnotizing than it usually is.

Murmuration is a phenomenon when hundreds or even thousands of starlings fly in coordinated patterns. Xavi explains that it happens in winters, and the birds do it to confuse the hawks that attack them.

While murmurations confuse or perhaps even scare the predators, they have quite a different effect on humans. They look like an incredibly elegant dance, and I personally find it very soothing to watch. In his project, Xavi captures this “dance” so that he records the patterns of the birds’ flight, and he makes it look almost surreal. You can check out the rest of the project on Xavi’s website and follow him on Instagram and Facebook for more of his work.

[via Laughing Squid]